BSc Geography and Geology with a year abroad / Course details

Course unit details:Palaeobiology

Unit code

EART20112

Credit rating

10

Unit level

Level 2

Teaching period(s)

Semester 2

Offered by

School of Earth and Environmental Sciences

Available as a free choice unit?

Yes

Overview

Life first appeared on earth more than 3000-million years ago, and since this time has undergone many changes, driven by evolution. This course will explore the evolution of life in deep time, from its origins, through major evolutionary transitions, to the ecosystems we have today.

Pre/co-requisites

Unit title

Unit code

Requirement type

Description

EART10211

Pre-Requisite

Compulsory

Aims

¿ To provide an overview of major milestones in the history of life, the patterns and processes of evolution, and the structure of the tree of life.

¿ Further develop the uses, description and classification of both invertebrates and vertebrate fossils in a stratigraphic framework. This will include an introduction to microfossils.

¿ To cover topics in palaeoecology such as fossils as indicators of environment, and the development of ecosystems.

Learning outcomes

Students at the end of the course will:

Have further developed their knowledge of the major invertebrate, vertebrate and microfossil groups.

Understand the fundamentals of evolution, the tree of life, and pre-Phanerozoic history of life on earth.

Be able to demonstrate how fossils are used for biostratigraphy and as indicators of palaeoenvironment.

Syllabus

Lecture 01 - Evolutionary milestones.

This will provide an overview of important evolutionary milestones in the first 3000-million years of evolution. Throughout there will be a focus on how these appear in the fossil record. These will include: Early earth, the origin of life and abiogenesis; early evolution, namely the last universal common ancestor, and splits between Archaea and Bacteria; the great oxygenation event, precursors to this, and its impact; eukaryotes, and their origin through endosymbiosis; the origins origins of sexual reproduction; the evolution of multicellularity; Ediacaran fossils - their affinities and taphonomy; the origin of animals in the Cambrian explosion.

Lecture 02 - Evolution.

This will introduce the basics of evolution, its processes, patterns, and history of study. Topics will include: Natural selection, variation, and heritability; Fitness and types of selection; genetic drift and randomness; adaptation, and associated with this, morphodynamics; species concepts; the different processes of speciation; the rate and patterns of evolution; gene duplication and Evo-Dvo.

Lecture 03 - The tree of life.

Here we will look at the tree of life - how it is structured, and how we can work this out from organisms and fossils. Topics will include: Species concepts; taxonomy, classification and systematics; cladistics, including characters, homology, homoplasy, convergence, genetic sequences, parsimony, heuristic searches, and likelihood methods; interpreting phylogenies;fossils in phylogenies; molecular clocks; and then an overview of the topology of the tree of life.

The start of this lecture will revise basic stratigraphy and include a small exercise to demonstrate these concepts. It will then provide an overview of the principles and concepts of Biostratigraphy, including what it is, the concept of Litho- versus Biostratigraphy, the use of biozones, and what affects temporal resolution. It will highlight the properties of a good index fossil, and then revise the different major invertebrate fossils groups, and their stratigraphic distribution. It will also touch on correlation, and quantitative biostratigraphy.

Practical 01 - Inkscape.

This pr

Assessment methods

Method

Weight

Other

25%

Written exam

50%

Practical skills assessment

25%

Written Exam (50%)

Poster (25%)

Practical Test (25%)

Feedback methods

Formative feedback will be provided during the practical sessions. Summative feedback from the Practical Exams will be given within one week of the assessment by the course leader (including marks). Exam feedback will follow SEAES policy.